THE BIG IDEA

The Big Idea Decarbonisation -

How today can influence tomorrow

By Stuart McLaren Decarbonomics Director

It’s clear that the decarbonisation of the built environment should be at the centre of any strategy to reach net zero by 2050 globally. Not least because as much as 80% of the buildings that will be standing in 2050 have already been built.

There are very few serious construction sector leaders who would argue against the need to decarbonise to deliver net zero, but their big challenge is often squaring that strategic intent with the reality of cost, how to make the case for investment and verifying that the carbon reductions have been achieved.

With complex value chains and multiple variables to consider across the construction and asset management ecosystem, unified and meaningful progress will only be made where industry is able to make informed investment decisions by understanding the wider system across the whole life cycle. Systems-thinking is fairly hard in itself but it’s even more difficult to operationalise into something that can be used to do work.

Having a clear path to future proofing data, digital and physical assets (including components) through standardisation should be a central focus for industry. Get these right and you stand a good chance of making substantial progress at not only decarbonising the built environment but dramatically improving the sectors long standing poor productivity. In response to these challenges, SNC-Lavalin (including Atkins and Faithful+Goluld) has launched Decarbonomics. This is a datadriven solution which operationalises systems-thinking into a deployable service to decarbonize the existing built environment in a cost-effective way and accelerate the global journey to net zero. It is our belief that creating net zero communities of the future will be (mostly) dependent upon effective decarbonisation of existing assets. As such, Decarbonomics is a clear example of how we can help clients meet their net zero targets, by providing sustainable solutions.

For businesses and organisations with large property portfolios or estates, understanding the performance of their buildings and where their carbon emissions are is a real challenge. In turn the inability to develop robust and credible decarbonisation roadmaps that can deliver against commitments, support investment cases and inform capital investment planning becomes a material issue that will impede meaningful progress. Founded on principles of systems-thinking, Decarbonomics brings our diverse expertise and knowledge of the whole life cycle of the built environment and buildings together in a way that enables us to make carbon visible at the portfolio level and, in turn, empower our clients to make much more informed decisions about their investments in decarbonisation.

To achieve effective decarbonisation costeffectively, establishing the conditions for effective collaborative partnerships between the client and their value chain will be key.

We do this by significantly improving data accuracy and maturity early and by effectively integrating people, data and technology to provide greater opportunities to embrace outcome-based commercial models which mutually incentivise delivery of net zero goals. By taking our simple three-step approach of benchmarking, road mapping and delivery, the client’s decarbonisation program will be framed by a simple approach making delivery much less opaque, building confidence and trust over the course of a decarbonisation programme. At the benchmarking stage we capture, structure, and manage client portfolio data to gain a deeper understanding of their properties, benchmarking current performance to create a framework to maximise the value of their data.

At the road mapping stage, we analyse carbon, cost, asset data and engineering solutions to create enterprise level data digital twins. By using scenario testing through our inhouse asset management tools, augmented by artificial intelligence we create bespoke roadmaps, for the most costeffective and pragmatic implementation. It is at this stage that we can support clients making investment cases and decisions to ensure the way forward is financially viable.

Once the direction of travel is set, our industry-leading management teams ensure quantifiable decarbonisation interventions are delivered throughout the life cycle of the client’s assets. This provides real-time views of their performance against the plan and initial benchmarking process.

This three-step approach is underpinned by our Carbon Data Insights, which is a diverse mix of global open-source benchmark databases augmented by our own data rich environment developed through the delivery of a wide range of global projects. By implementing a strategy for achieving carbon reduction from behaviour change to building retrofit interventions, (and measuring progress across the portfolio and asset lifecycle) the end result will be a decarbonised estate.

For the first time, Decarbonomics will provide clients with a complete picture of carbon performance across their entire building estate over the entire decarbonisation programme, whatever the size and scale, through accessible and easy to use interactive dashboards.

With flexibility and accuracy built-in, Decarbonomics enables organisations to accelerate their net zero plans in the most cost and programme effective way, whilst at the same time minimising risk and maximising investment and funding opportunities.

For the first time, Decarbonomics will provide clients with a complete picture of carbon performance across their entire building estate over the entire decarbonisation programme, whatever the size and scale, through accessible and easy to use interactive dashboards

STAGE 1: BENCHMARK

Baseline and benchmark your estate – see where carbon emissions exist.

STAGE 2: ROADMAP

Evaluate interventions, scenario modelling and development of optimised decarbonisation roadmaps.

STAGE 3: DELIVER

Create cost and programme optimised delivery plans for effective implementation. Track performance.